This is the story of Duane, Jacy, and Sonny—teenagers longing for love and a more thrilling life—as well as some of the adults in their small town of Thalia, Texas. The teenagers dream of bigger things than the town seems to offer and the adults are drawn to the fresh teenagers like moths to a flame. The adults’ misery with life in Thalia is palpable.

This story is humorous and nostalgic, yet melancholy and dejected. The sadness most of the characters feel about their lives is front and center, and even when the teenagers are thrill-seeking, their bad decisions come back to haunt them in the form of unexpected outcomes. The adults are no better. Even in the last chapter when Ruth rages at Sonny’s ineptitude and inadvertent coldness toward her, she still longs for his youthful touch while she exclaims, “I’m really not smart.”

Narrated in a plainspoken style with realistic dialog from the Texas region, Archuleta has cherry-picked eight vignettes from the young life of a boy named Josh. In the first story, Josh's mother Belle quickly leaves her husband, Josh's kind step-dad Cecil, for the refuge of family members and hopes of a better life. In the second story, we find Josh has been abandoned by his "free spirit" mother. As the rest of the stories unfold, there is a melancholy fog that settles over the life that Josh has been presented with. But all the while, the young boy works hard to take care of himself, even helping his high school football team achieve greatness, despite the hardships life throws his way. There is an undercurrent of hopefulness throughout the book. And even when the military shuttles him away to Vietnam, he eventually finds his way back to the town that seems so bleak and unforgiving, yet it is the place he calls home. If I had one complaint, then it would be that the book could have been longer, leaving more room for the stories of the supporting cast to reveal themselves. Otherwise, an excellent collection of stories.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of stories and I highly recommend it. I would give this book 5 stars.

Buy the paperback on Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/152/9781457559198

This novel of literary fiction is a ribald and adventurous mixture of humor, magical realism, Old West historical fact, and dream-like self-reflection. It’s quite difficult to categorize this book. But author Brian Kindall skillfully unspools a literary tale worth reading. There’s a reason it was selected as a Finalist for Literary Fiction in the 2015 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards.

Didier Rain—the unruly yet kind protagonist—is hired to deliver a baby named Virtue to a Mormon prophet, who has been chosen as his future bride. (!!!) Rain’s proclivities for alcohol and sex are dashed when he is instructed to not partake in these dalliences during the long trip. He is accompanied by two horses—Brownie and Puck—and a helpful goat that remains sadly unnamed. At first, the animals are imagined by Rain to speak, but then are gradually personified into full-blown characters. Virtue miraculously grows into a young woman during the trip, this unusually magical transformation rendered as a normal occurrence. The group enlists an abandoned Native American woman named Turtle Dove and encounter a variety of miscreants and curious onlookers during their trek. Rains exploits are both comical and unexpected. His proclivity to give into his unrelenting carnal desires or poetic indulgences reveals to his thoughtful introspection, which is mined more fruitfully with his backstory.

This humorous novel is one I had one of my eyes on (the curious fun-loving eye) for a few months. It’s an indie book that received starred reviews from both BlueInk Review and Kirkus Reviews, even landing on the Kirkus “Best Books of 2018” indie list. Color me impressed. Although, my other more cynical eye was skeptical, and here’s why. Usually for me, if someone says a novel is very funny or laugh out loud, then it isn’t. For me. I know that humor and what is considered funny is subjective and very different for everyone. But I rarely find books declared hysterical to actually be hysterical—until now. The Unlounging is funny—really funny. I burst out laughing often while reading it and—let me tell you, folks—that means something to me. It really does.

Selraybob—the main character and the author of this book—peaked in stature and popularity back in high school as a football tackle. Glory days now gone, his wife Joalene leaves his lazy ass in a plume of dust on his lounger, where he drinks beer and becomes perplexed by two out-of-sync clocks in his rundown house. He ruminates about Time, which propels his low life to new places: a job at the library (so he can read all about Time), local clock shops employed with conspiracy theorists, a road trip with his friend Herm and Herm’s wife Susy Liu Anne to the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado to see the atomic clock, and so much more. He also befriends a chubby high-schooler to help him get in shape for the football team, pines for a sexy, clock shop employee who seems to understand his fascination with Time like no one else in his life, and attempts to befriend the mangy mutt who barks all day down the street. This collision of couch philosophizing and easy-going storytelling is a surefire recipe for fun. I was chuckling, laughing, then cheering for Sel’s exploits to pan out (his friends call him Sel for short).

I read this novel in high school and later in college, as many kids did. It's considered a classic for good reason. It's a well-crafted allegory with beautifully descriptive passages. But would I get much out of rereading a novel for a third time as a well-read, literary-critical adult? It turns out, I did. For this review, I listened to the audiobook version as read by the author, William Golding, which I will discuss at the end of this review. 

Before reading this novel again, I read The Coral Island, the novel William Golding claimed to write Lord of the Flies as a counterpoint to. Both books have the similarly named Jack, Ralph and Peterkin / Piggy main characters, but Lord of the Flies has additional cast members in Simon, Roger, and more. Both books, at their core, are about boys stranded on an island without adults around to take care of them. 

The narrator of Lord of the Flies tells the lost boys' story vividly and, at times, poetically, yet keeps an emotional distance from the boys, never eliciting empathy or affection for them or their dilemma. Golding explains before starting his story that these boys represent scaled-down society and, if left to their own devices, would reduce their company to all-out anarchy. This is where Golding's genius lies: creating a premise to contemplate where evil instigates. Golding demonstrates that the disregard of rules and order is what nurtures evil, and it's hard not to disagree with Golding because of the way he structures his story with these three particular fetid protagonists. 

This novel is a fun mix of comedy and romance but from a decidedly male perspective, a middle-aged lonely-heart using whatever bits of wisdom he’s gained in hopes of rekindling his youthful romance. It’s a perspective that is refreshingly comedic and this exceptionally crafted literary novel turns the romance genre on its head.

The protagonist—Nate Evans—is a screenwriter with a lackluster career. The novel opens just after his home is destroyed by an accidental bomb from an Air Force plane. Sifting through the rubble, Nate ruminates on his lowly existence. If his life could have a mulligan—a golfing term for a do-over—and relive his romance with his high school sweetheart, then he would do it in a heartbeat. With his home destroyed, he moves back in with his parents and gets a job at his old high school to put him in close proximity to Jules—his old flame.

This novel was released in 2001, then subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize. I admired Chabon's previous books and I began to read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay a few years ago after reading Wonder Boys (I absolutely LOVED Wonder Boys). But I had to put Kavalier & Clay down at the time because, mostly, I didn't have the necessary attention span for it. There is a density and intricacy to Chabon's sentences that require a certain amount of reader fortitude; a distracted mind will not find comfort in his prose. This time around, I found this novel to be a very enjoyable read and a marvelous book. It certainly deserves the praise and accolades it has received.

Here's this novel's brief description: Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book. Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men.

There There, the debut novel by Tommy Orange, follows a large cast of Native Americans who live in Oakland, California. Orange does a masterful job of setting up his narrative with a prologue about the history of Native Americans and the power of who tells those stories, whether by white people or others. Then he unfurls the narrative with each of his characters stories like a patchwork quilt weaved with sadness and regret and remorse. All his characters are troubled and, unfortunately for them and the reader as well, there will be no light at the end of their tunnel. The narrative is a dirge, figuratively and literally. It's a heavy story but one that needed to be told and listened to. I think it's important to hear the stories of all Americans, most importantly the marginalized.

I recently watched The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me with my wife and children. My wife and I had seen the movies when they first came out but our children had not seen either movie. The kids loved both movies and I was very pleased to see that the films held up beautifully with time. The movies are universally loved. If you don't believe me, then go look on Rotten Tomatoes (here and here).

I got to thinking (uh oh). The source material had to be great to make such fantastic movies. I read quite a bit of Stephen King in my teen years (Cujo, Carrie, Night Shift), but I hadn't read Different Seasons, the book of four novellas—two of which were the basis for these movies. My curiosity was piqued. Was it time for a personal reconsideration of Stephen King? I've recently discovered that there are a lot of critics doing this, particularly The Guardian's 'Rereading Stephen King' column is giving it a go. I read their review of Different Seasons with great interest, although I disagreed with most of the James Smythe's assessments. But there is one thing he and I agree on: there is some literary greatness within the cover of Different Seasons. Unfortunately, there are some not so great moments, too.

I decided to buy the book through Audible. It is narrated by Frank Muller. I'll review his narration separately.

So, let's dive in!